On Prekariart’s Chronicles - Arturo Cancio & Eléonore Ozanne (Method/Art 2021)
The Prekariart research project focuses on the study of the precarious condition of contemporary art and artists from a multidisciplinary approach. During the last four years, the researchers of this project have reflected on the legal, sociological, economic, philosophical, and artistic features of this phenomenon in a number of scholarly papers, books, communications in conferences, seminars, artworks, and cultural events. In this context, one of the major tasks of Prekariart’s researchers has entailed the analysis of artworks from artists who use practice-led and/or practice-based investigation methods to reflect either on their own or other people’s precarious labor condition. To carry out that task, we sourced artworks from the golden age up until contemporary times. In this communication, we will refer to these analyses as chronicles or historical accounts of events. However, we never arranged them in a timeline, but related them to an agreed notion of precarious labor, based on empirical data. Consequently, the aim of our contribution to the seminar is to review these chronicles and try to detect common features in the methodologies artists used to produce their artworks. In a way, we would be talking about a particular chronicle of chronicles of the precarious state of artistic labor. As so, our talk will first set the bases of how can be defined artistic precarious labor conditions to be able to highlight methodological tools employed by artists who work on precarity and/or from precarity. Then, we pretend to emphasize on possible methodological convergences and divergences used to achieve their purpose. Finally, we expect to be able to portray different visions of artists' conditions and contemporary precarity. In this context, we would also like to open a discussion about the role of artworks as ‘chronicable’ events in particular contexts, such as Prekariart, and the position of contemporary chronicle making within the larger category of Contemporary Historiography, in which we suppose it should belong. This presentation was a part of the Methods in Artistic Research seminar. For more information: https://www.methodartseminar.com
The Prekariart research project focuses on the study of the precarious condition of contemporary art and artists from a multidisciplinary approach. During the last four years, the researchers of this project have reflected on the legal, sociological, economic, philosophical, and artistic features of this phenomenon in a number of scholarly papers, books, communications in conferences, seminars, artworks, and cultural events. In this context, one of the major tasks of Prekariart’s researchers has entailed the analysis of artworks from artists who use practice-led and/or practice-based investigation methods to reflect either on their own or other people’s precarious labor condition. To carry out that task, we sourced artworks from the golden age up until contemporary times. In this communication, we will refer to these analyses as chronicles or historical accounts of events. However, we never arranged them in a timeline, but related them to an agreed notion of precarious labor, based on empirical data. Consequently, the aim of our contribution to the seminar is to review these chronicles and try to detect common features in the methodologies artists used to produce their artworks. In a way, we would be talking about a particular chronicle of chronicles of the precarious state of artistic labor. As so, our talk will first set the bases of how can be defined artistic precarious labor conditions to be able to highlight methodological tools employed by artists who work on precarity and/or from precarity. Then, we pretend to emphasize on possible methodological convergences and divergences used to achieve their purpose. Finally, we expect to be able to portray different visions of artists' conditions and contemporary precarity. In this context, we would also like to open a discussion about the role of artworks as ‘chronicable’ events in particular contexts, such as Prekariart, and the position of contemporary chronicle making within the larger category of Contemporary Historiography, in which we suppose it should belong. This presentation was a part of the Methods in Artistic Research seminar. For more information: https://www.methodartseminar.com